FREEDOM WATCH

"Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."...Arthur Conan Doyle

Sunday, March 01, 2020

Life Under A Constitutional Republic vs. Socialism

By John PorterHarrison, Arkansas johnporter21039@gmail.com
My heart's desire is that I can here help people to better understand living in a Constitutional Republic vs a Socialist Government, which some are strongly advocating.

If I can't do that in an effective manner, it is not because of you. It is because of my poor ability to properly explain it. If you believe in Socialism or are not sure before reading this and still do after considering it, then I have failed, and apologize for wasting your time. It's a bit lengthy but please read it. It will take only a couple of minutes.

Most are aware of Ben Franklin's famous reply when asked as he emerged from the convention, what have you done in there? “We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.”

It is of utmost importance to here and now understand that Democracy is not found in any Founding Document, Socialist is not found in any founding Document, much less Socialist Democracy!!Franklin's description of Democracy, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.” Thomas Jefferson said, “Democracies are dangerous because a Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Because of that understanding the United States was formed as a Republic.

Socialism is government regulation and control of all aspects of your personal life and businesses. Combining Democracy and Socialism is doubling up on the evils of both. So called “Democratic Socialism” would completely wipe away the Constitutional Republic we were given, and Individual Freedom with control over our own lives and businesses would be gone forever.

The United States was formed as a Republic by design, in order to substantially limit the government's power and to protect “natural individual rights.” Your rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are “natural” not government allowed. We formed our government, it did not form us.Individual Freedom is your right or power to act, speak, or think as you want without hindrance or restraint in your “life” with complete “liberty” to “pursue your own happiness.”

Socialism or “Democratic Socialism” is the exact opposite of a Constitutional Republic. Your life, lived with the liberty to pursue your happiness unhindered and unrestrained, is not allowed in a Socialist government. The movement to destroy our Constitutional Republic and replace it with a Socialist government is led by those people who identify themselves as Democratic Socialists, Communists, Progressives, Liberals, and others. The most common in the United States presently are “Democratic Socialists” and “Progressives.” No matter what the label, make no mistake, all are Socialism in some form and will eventually lead to complete control of the way we are allowed to live.

It is an undisputed fact that people are escaping Socialist countries by the tens of thousands from all over the world and legally coming to the United States for refuge and the freedom to pursue their dreams and happiness. Very few, if any, ever return to the country from whence they came. This isn't even considering the many thousands coming illegally. I have honestly tried with all my might, unsuccessfully, to understand why anyone whether in politics or just an everyday working American sitting at home reading this would think it okay to change our government to one like those people are escaping from.

Some time ago a Cuban Refugee who risked his life to come by a small boat to the U.S., was explaining to an American friend the horrific conditions he left behind. His friend said, man I am so lucky. The Cuban replied, “YOU'RE lucky, I had someplace to escape to.”

I hope all can understand, we won't go to bed one night in a Constitutional Republic and wake up the next morning in a Socialist State. It has never happened that way. It happens a little bite at a time. An apple is eaten one bite at a time until it is devoured.

The leaders of all Socialist nations who now control almost every aspect of the lives of their citizens were voted into office by the people, being promised everything will be free and equality for all, the poor sharing the good life of the rich. What actually happened the rich have wound up sharing in the misery of the poor. But all are now equal, equally poor. The only rich are those leading the Socialist government. You can vote your way into Socialism but you can't vote your way out. You can't vote your way out because the Socialist leaders won't give up their power. If they have to use the military to keep it, they do so.

The people running for president of the United States on the Democrat Party ticket, and several reading this, (paraphrasing Ayn Rand) believe you have no right to exist for your own sake, that your life and your work do not belong to you, but belongs to society, that the only justification of your existence is your service to society, and that society may dispose of you in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own collective good.

November 3, 2020 we will have a huge decision to make. Do we keep our Constitutional Republic with our Individual Freedom to control our own lives with the liberty to pursue our happiness or do we exchange it for a Socialist government controlling our lives, restricting our liberty and dictating what they deem to be our happiness?

We have a Republic, if we can keep it. The decision rests in our hands.

I hope you will share this all over the nation. STOPPING SOCIALISM IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE BEFORE US TODAY.

Wednesday, January 01, 2020

ALL PATRIOT EYES AND GUNS ARE TRAINED ON VIRGINIA

Liberals are the most evil, anti-American group in the United States. They are also, thankfully, the least intelligent and seemingly devoid of any understanding of Human Nature. This is both good and bad, depending on the situation.

The situation brewing in Virginia is that the Liberal Democrat legislature and their baby-murdering governor seem to think they can pass state laws against the private ownership of guns, and once passed, they can confiscate those guns while their intended victims do nothing. Virginia Governor Northam recently ordered the budget for incarcerations to be increased to account for all the gun owners the state plans to jail for non-compliance. Apparently Northam thinks that move will discourage non-compliance; instead, Governor Northam has signed his own death warrant.

There is at least one county sheriff in Virginia currently organizing a militia to deal with the situation, but those people are very least the Liberals of Virginia need to worry about. No, what they should be concerned about, if they had any brains at all, are all the heavily armed citizens who have recently returned from combat in Middle East guerilla wars.

I often hear Liberals, who don't know anything about asymmetrical warfare, comment that people with small arms have no chance against the heavier weapons available to our military and National Guard. Apparently, those idiots actually think those who would resist an attempt to disarm them will stand like a conventional army against such firepower and get slaughtered en masse, thus, problem solved. It's that kind of ignorance and stupidity that just might lead to a major problem starting in Virginia and fanning out throughout the United States.

This is how it will go down in reality. The very first individual or family that is raided for their, "illegal", firearms will be the martyrs. The Resistance will then begin a hit & run campaign of killing every Liberal they can find, be they citizens or government officials. People who made the mistake of writing anti-American/anti-gun letters to their newspapers are already in databases along with their addresses. Liberal professors, Liberal public school teachers, Liberal newspaper employees and everyone identified as Liberal will be assassinated. No, the citizens of Virginia won't be incarcerated; those who attempted to violate their constitutional rights will, whether they be confined in their own homes or having to leave the state. The Liberals have no clue what awaits them if they cross that red line, but once it starts, they will have no idea how to stop it. It will be like a wildfire that gets started in heavy, dense brush on a hot Summer day.

I'm curious to know if President Trump is aware of the Virginia situation, and how close it is to all out civil war. I'm inclined to think he is, but assuming anything is foolish. Governor Northam probably thinks he can call up the Virginia National Guard in an attempt to put down the insurrection, but that is probably because he doesn't know about the Dick Act of 1903. The Dick Act places the National Guard directly under the authority of the President of The United States. If there is ever a conflict between a state and the federal government over who has the right to command the National Guard, the President has the upper hand. An example of this is when Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to prevent school integration in his state. His own National Guard was ordered by the President to enforce integration against Wallace' wishes and we know the rest of the story.

Of course, President Trump could jump in the moment Virginia passes such unconstitutional laws or tries to enforce them, or, Trump could let Governor Northam know well in advance that his National Guard will not be available for use against the citizens. With no National Guard to protect him, and a police force that will be wiped out in short order the moment they try to enforce gun confiscation, the Virginia State House and legislature will be left unprotected. By the time that happens, enough good citizens will have been killed to create an unstoppable rage in people bent on revenge, and I don't think they will be in any mood to hold trials. In fact, I can foresee Northam being burned at the stake on live TV, as well as public hangings. I hope it never reaches that point, but I have too solid a grasp of Human Nature to dismiss that probability.

The good people of the United States have had just about enough Liberal bullshit. First, they tried every possible way they could to destroy the President we voted for. For the first time since Obama left office, people have jobs and their wages are going up. They are finally beginning to have savings accounts again. For a nice change, we have a president who is not easily tricked into war. The Liberals' incessant lies, their obsession with anything sexually perverted and their lust for killing more and more Human babies is getting to be a bit much, prompting many Americans to seriously consider that they may have to cleanse all Liberal filth from our society once and for all, that is, if they are ever going to save this nation. It is for that reason that I fear if Virginia goes, so will the rest of the nation -- and that would be calamitous for all of us. Our economy will collapse and our foreign enemies will pounce. On the other hand, if the good and decent citizens do nothing, they'll lose this beloved nation anyway -- and that is what all these insanely stupid Liberals do not understand and won't, until it is too late.

Tuesday, November 05, 2019

THE DEEP STATE IS CANCELING YOUR VOTE

By Carl Worden
wolfeyes00@gmail.com

Republican Bill Bennett was Secretary of Education for a time, and he wrote a book about his experiences there.

One of the difficulties Bennett wrote about was his discovery that his orders to carry out Republican policies were not being carried out by those tasked with doing just that. Basically, he revealed that he was at the helm, steering his ship, only to discover his wheel wasn't attached to the rudder. The rudder was being controlled by bureaucrats in the Department of Education, who were continuing to conduct business by Democrat policies. He ended up having to go down several levels of authority and get rid of all the bureaucrats who were subverting his direct orders.

That is how the Deep State cancels your vote! We elect an administration intent on bringing reforms we want, but if that administration isn't inspecting for what they are expecting, business as usual is what we get.

President Obama understood this quite well. He staffed all his agencies and the courts with lifelong bureaucrats and constitutionally corrupt judges, respectively, who were solid Liberal Socialists, for the purpose of subverting any Conservative administration that might follow his.

I don't know exactly when or how, but somehow it became virtually impossible to fire these lifelong bureaucrats, even for outright subversion, and all while the GOP apparently slept right through it. As a result, we have bureaucrats dug into our government like ticks, who believe they run the government, and can do just about anything they want because the government has become so big and unwieldy it is difficult to root them out.

As it turns out, the so-called Whistleblower whose testimony gave birth to this sham impeachment effort against President Trump, simply disagreed with Trump on foreign relations policy involving Ukraine. He or she had no actual evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. In other words, this creep had come to believe s/he had a right to subvert Trump's administration because s/he knows better than the American voters who put Trump into office.

The reason Trump removed the former U.S. Ambassador from her position in Ukraine was because he'd received credible reports that she was actively trying to subvert Trump's policies toward Ukraine. Just as Bill Bennett discovered, lifelong bureaucrats have taken the attitude that they should run the government as they see fit, and to Hell with the current administration's orders! After all, administrations come and go every four to eight years, so these bureaucrats think they know better and they continue to run their departments as if they are independent of the current president's wishes.

That is what's been going on in every major department of our government.

Even worse is the fact our FBI, State Department and intelligence services have also been infected, not only by the appointed leadership, but also by ideologue bureaucrats working under those officials. So we had bad apples like former FBI Director James Comey and former intelligence officials like John Brennan and James Clapper, supported by underlings like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who continued to subvert Trump's policies even after the former Obama appointed officials had been removed from their posts.

I've written this before: While it will undoubtedly harm some very good and loyal bureaucrats who do follow a new administration's policies, the only way to solve these problems is to replace not only the existing department heads when a new administration takes power, but also to replace every single person down to the third level of authority in those departments.

Most of us will initially agree that the rank and file of FBI and CIA agents are loyal and patriotic Americans, but then we see those same rank and file FBI and CIA agents follow orders that are not consistent with our basic constitutional rights. They follow orders they know they shouldn't because they don't want to get fired, and those orders often do not come directly from the appointed officials heading their agencies. Those orders are issued by people who are expected to follow administration policy, but don't because they have come to believe their superior judgment justifies resisting policy they don't personally agree with.

And that is how the Deep State is canceling your vote. If these self-righteous bureaucrats are not replaced down to the third level of authority in every department of the government when a new administration takes power, it will continue just as it has.

Monday, July 15, 2019

A Great Consolidation of Government

Bernhard Thuersam (bernhard1848@gmail.com)

The Constitution’s ratification is said to be the result of a series of illegal acts, with some revolutionary in character. And it is difficult to imagine exactly who would have pressed charges against the framers for subverting the Articles of Confederation while circumventing their own State legislatures in the process.

The Federalists, who favored increased centralization of power, were well-aware of their inability to defend the abandonment of the Confederation legally – though James Madison weakly observed in Federalist 40 that “in all great changes in established governments, forms ought to give way to substance.”

www.Circa1865.org The Great American Political Divide

A Great Consolidation of Government

“After June 25, 1788, three States remained outside the new Union: New York, whose convention came to order in Poughkeepsie on June 17; North Carolina, whose delegates would meet in late July; and Rhode Island, to whose fate most Federalists were indifferent.

[New York anti-Federalists searched] for a formula for conditional ratification that would keep the State in the Union while preserving the right to withdraw subsequently should its amendments not be adopted. So opposed were Federalists to any form of conditional ratification that [Alexander] Hamilton even wondered whether they should agree that New York could reserve a right to “recede” from the Union should its desired amendments not be adopted . . .

Anti-Federalists insisted that North Carolina was not rejecting the Constitution outright, and they further intimated that the State would somehow remain in the Union – if not its new government – because the compact of the [Articles of] Confederation could be dissolved only with the consent of ALL its parties. Remarkably, Anti-Federalists even challenged the right of the convention to abandon the Confederation, or to substitute “We the people” as the source of federal legitimacy for “we the States.”

[James Madison’s Federalist 39 described the Constitution]: “In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of government are drawn, it is party federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.”

Such distinctions hardly assured the anti-Federalists who knew that the Constitution would form the States into a new Leviathan. “We may be amused if we please, by a treatise of political anatomy,” Patrick Henry warned the Virginia ratifiers, rebutting a speech in which Madison restated this argument. “In the brain it is national: the stamina are federal – some limbs are federal – others are national.”

“But what signifies it to me, that you have the most curious anatomical description of it in its creation?” Henry asked. “To all the common purposes of Legislation it is a great consolidation of Government.”

Thursday, June 27, 2019

LET’S TALK LEADERSHIP

Is the purpose of leadership to influence a person, or persons to think a certain way, or to do a specific thing?

I would say, always the former, and sometimes the former and the latter.

Leadership is about fulfilling the mission given to you by God. You are here for His Purpose, not yours. God is the Creator, and your Creator. The Bible tells us He knew you before you were in the womb. Do you understand what that means? You existed somewhere before you existed here. God created your spirit, your soul, before He gave you your body.

God is wondrous. He Created all that you see around you. Every blade of grass, every flower, every ant, and here’s the absolutely unbelievable part, each thing has a purpose, His Purpose. How great God must be, how awesome, how complete, how prevailing. Like a Great Author writing every letter, every comma, every period. God has a Plan, a Divine Plan. His manifestation of that Plan, like a great script is Providence. All that is, is God. As the author He knows all, directs all, from start to finish.

Why does God do that?

Answer: I don’t know. He’s God, I am not.

What I believe is here and now is not all there is. Here and now is an oven, a place where God makes things. What the end purpose of those things He Makes is known only by Him.

So back to leadership.

There is a grand story being played out on earth. In that story is good and evil. Good is God, bad is Satan. Leadership is a tool used by God and Satan to marshal human forces here on earth. Leadership is an intangible, a quality of character, it is a gift from God given to some, maybe even all, in some amount. Some have more, some less. But, it is the gold standard for organizing human beings to act, to behave, to think. Like the air, leadership is everywhere human beings are, and if it is not on behalf of God, it is on behalf of Satan. There is no neutral leadership.

In America, at its earliest, man knew God, and knew the Bible was His Word. The Holy Spirit played a great role in directing people and events to bring Columbus to the new world. And from that point forward, God’s Providence guided discovery, exploration, settlement, colonization and the creation of the states until revolution led to war and the making of the United States. The Founders, and the founders knew God. The Founders were the names in history you know, the founders are the millions of names you don’t know, but are the people who built the communities, states, and finally America.

God had saved the western hemisphere for a purpose, and at least to the end of the Cold War in 1991 America’s purpose was almost self-evident.

Leadership had been God’s tool. In the Bible we are told God chooses the leaders. He chooses the good leaders, and He chooses the bad leaders. And like the wheat stalks blowing in the fields, first this way and then that, with the prevailing wind, human beings also blow this way and that. What was once good and right becomes wrong, and what is and always was wrong, is becoming right for now.

Like a ship in a storm, America is being tossed. The impulses are rapid, with irresistible force, chaotic, unpredictable, and wild. Like the Apostles in the boat, with Jesus sleeping, we are afraid. But God is here, and what occurs is at His Direction, not that of Satan, though Satan thinks he is director.

Leadership has two choices today. Leaders can panic, react to each wave, to each force, or leadership can rely on God, spend time in seeking God, praising God for all He has done for America. Some problems like immigration seem out of control. We look to control, but instead maybe we need to look to God and have confidence in His Plan.

The mistake America is making, is the one made by Israel. We think we are in control. We have turned from God. The decisions we make are the ones embracing evil, and calling evil right. God gave us a manual to live by. The Founders/founders thought so much of the Bible that great Bible Societies sprang up all over the new born United States. Thomas Jefferson himself, selected from the Bible the lessons of Jesus to be given to native Americans. Congress appropriated money for churches and religious men to help native Americans assimilate into America.

Leadership must come from the descendants of the founders. The entire infrastructure of government is corrupt. The Courts, the judges, that came from Moses are now from Bail. Our representatives represent our worst features, not our best. We depend on a President whose heart may be looking towards God, but his some of his words and actions are acid. The great failure of America took decades to blossom. At one time – we were a Christian nation, our churches were our nation’s conscience. The Bible was the cornerstone.

Today we must return from whence we came. Lead, get out your Bible and read it. Carry it where you go. And head to church, seek out a church that is of the Word, and not the wind. Understand your place, repent, go to God for the sake of your children and this nation’s future.

Monday, June 03, 2019

Republic, Free Market

There are times when we just feel lost. You try to reason something out, first in your own mind, then with another, honestly attempting to understand what is right. Not from a political standpoint, just what is right and what is wrong, and it just seems to no avail. Is it a fact or not that this nation was founded upon the principal that all men are created equal and are free individuals to pursue their own happiness in their own way without government interference, as long as their way in pursuit of happiness does not infringe upon the rights of another in pursuit of their happiness?

Is it a fact or not that what is happiness to one may not be happiness to another? Is it a fact or not that the most successful, time proven system of people achieving their happiness is called a free market? I am thinking that Capitalism is the wrong word used to describe our way of traveling down the highway of life in the free pursuit of our personal happiness. Capitalism has the sound of, "It's a lot of big money or nothing" to the younger generation. Rather our system is really, Free Market, Individual Free Enterprise, "Enterprise": (1) an undertaking; project; a bold, difficult, dangerous, or important undertaking; (2) willingness to undertake new or risky projects; energy and initiative; (3) active participation in projects...Webster's College Dictionary.

Free Market, Individually Free Constitutional Republic. There are words which warms the heart, brightens the spirit, makes a person feel good, puts tears in your eyes. Republic is one of those words. Free to think what ever we wish to think, free to speak what ever we want to say, free to worship as we will, or not worship at all, free to defend ourselves and family, free to use our personally earned money as we wish, free to vote and elect those we wish to be the caretakers of those freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, free to be responsible and take care of ourselves, free to pursue our happiness in our way, yes fail or succeed in our way.

Everything I have just described will be completely wiped out of existence if we allow Socialism to become the system of government in this nation. It will be like using an eraser on a blackboard. Republic will be no more, gone forever. Socialism is usually defined as government controlled production and distribution. But it is much, much more. It always begins with an innocently perceived government program that is touted as free. A thousand cuts later it is complete control of every aspect of your life. Those in power will remain there, unchecked.

Ever since history began to be recorded we can read of the struggle of man’s desire to be free, to live his life as he wishes, to pursue his own happiness free from government control of his life, free from others who think they know best about how he should live. That struggle can be properly spoken of as war. A war between men desiring to be free and men who want to force them into bondage. A war between freedom (Constitutional Republic) and slavery (Socialism), if you will.

My plea to men and women all over this great nation is we must rededicate ourselves to the proposition that this is a country of Individual Freedom and Free Enterprise and be devoted to our Representative Constitutional Republic, and strengthen our resolve to keep it by winning this battle for the hearts and minds of men and women all across this nation against Socialism.

STOPPING SOCIALISM IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TODAY!! THE SLEEPING GIANT MUST BE WOKEN.
Please help me to spread this to as many people as humanly possible!!

Sunday, May 26, 2019

A COMMUNIST FBI DIRECTOR TOO?

By Carl F. Worden
wolfeyes00@gmail.com

It is old news that John Brennan, former Director of the CIA under President Obama, voted for a Communist candidate. But recently, James Comey, former Director of the FBI under President Obama, admitted he had been a Communist.

Is there a pattern emerging here? Consider this: The United States Constitution does not give the federal government the authority to meddle in our children’s education, yet we have a U.S. Department of Education. The existence of such an agency is a direct violation of Article X of the Bill of Rights and it lawfully should be disbanded.

And what do we have to show for allowing the federal government to meddle in our children’s education? We have a bunch of kids who have been indoctrinated to view Socialism/Communism in a favorable light, and the source of that indoctrination is none other than our public school system. Was that another act committed by President Obama? Did Obama place Communists in charge of the Department of Education too, or is it just an uncanny coincidence?

The FBI is now America’s federal police force, yet the Framers did not authorize the federal government to form a federal police force -- which is why Congress played on semantics by calling it the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Regardless of Sean Hannity’s insistence that the rank & file of the FBI are solid Americans, and the rot only appears at the top, the FBI has had a long history of outrageous abuses that include Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Whitey Bulger scandal in Boston and many other cases that scream abuse and corruption.

When candidate Obama was running for office, he kept telling us he would fundamentally change the United States, and we foolishly believed he meant for the better. It was probably the only time Obama didn’t lie.

It is part of the Communist Manifesto to take over a nation’s health care as a vital step towards achieving Communism, and forcing ObamaCare on us was Obama’s signature act. I also remember that Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, accommodated the enactment of ObamaCare by calling the Individual Mandate a tax, even though it was not described as such in the bill itself. In other words, Roberts acted as an enabler for that act, rather than limiting himself to consider the constitutionality of ObamaCare as it was presented.

Is Justice Roberts a closet Communist too, or did Obama somehow corrupt Roberts, or perhaps blackmail him, to do Obama’s bidding?

Right now, we have scores of lower court federal judges who were appointed by Bill Clinton and Obama. Were they also hand-picked for their Communist leanings? Considering the judiciary’s never-ending adverse rulings against almost everything President Trump attempts to do, it certainly appears that way, and the only way to get rid of bad federal judges is to impeach them or kill them. That might explain the very suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Just before he was assassinated, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in which he warned that he had discovered a plot within our government that would enslave every man, woman and child in America. Unfortunately, Kennedy was killed before he could extrapolate further, but based on hard history, what system is better at enslaving an entire population -- than Communism?

Being a student of Bible Prophesy, I know that the One World Government spoken of by the prophets is a Socialist/Communist system, and that almost every nation will fall under its authority. However, it clearly states that Israel and Jordan will escape, and there is also strong prophetic evidence in the Bible that indicates the United States will also escape, mainly because we are the primary protector of Israel.

As more evidence is revealed about the Democrat plot to deny Trump the presidency, and if that failed, to remove him from office, I am becoming ever-more convinced that had Hillary Clinton been elected president, we would be well on our way to being disarmed and being forced under the One World Government that is forming in Europe right now.

President Obama had doubled the national debt from $10 trillion dollars to almost $20 trillion dollars in just eight short years, yet no one seems to know exactly where all that money went. It took 240 years to reach the $10 trillion mark under President GW Bush, but only eight to double it? And nobody is asking how? C’mon!

Had Hillary been elected, I strongly suspect it was her sacred duty to run the debt high enough to force the United States into default -- forcing our “new” government to be formed under the One World system. Just three years ago we had record unemployment, millions of people on food stamps and a GDP that rarely hit 2%. We were all told that was the new normal and that a return to our former prosperity was an impossibility -- and now it appears those eight years of torment were intentionally engineered!

Call me crazy if you like, but I truly believe that was the Democrats’ plan, and I also believe the surprise election of President Trump was an act of God‘s direct intervention to thwart that diabolical plan.